THE AUTOCULT 2014 CALENDAR: JANUARY

We just took delivery of the 2014 calendar and if you already placed your order, we’ll start shipping soon. If you haven’t ordered yet, make sure you stock up – there’s literally tons of stunner metal in this thing backed up by a dozen girls you wish you knew a little better. Believe that.

To kick the year off right, we did two things: called Joe Hickenbottom about his killer ’65 Barracuda gasser, “Leggin’ It!” and then placed a call to photographer Jay Watson. As soon as both Joe and Jay gave in to our pleads, we hit up one of our favorite California Suicide Girls, Bob, to see if she wanted to spend the day with us on Joe’s ranch near Salinas, CA. Lucky for us, she didn’t have a better offer for that day.

Now, if you haven’t seen our particular style of hot rod pinup, you’ll be happy to hear we don’t carpet-bomb the land with the likes of the horrendous photos you’ll see on the covers of the ratroddish car magazines these days. Not really sure what happened to the world of pinup photography over the last few years, but yeeeeeeesh…it’s not good, friend. Not good.

We figure it’s our lot in life to make something good. And, in most cases, just lining up the girl with the car with the shooter with the location is the lion’s share of the job. And so it went when we got Bob Suicide onboard. See, we knew about Joe’s “Leggin’ It!” Barracuda ever since we saw the shell laying behind one of his barns on his ranch – it was dragster with some race history and that handpainted art on the door was about as old as the radius job on the rear wheel wells. We knew, as soon as we saw it, that we needed to do something with it. ‘Specially when we saw pics of Joe running it about 6 months later as a fully-caged digger!

So, we needed a girl blessed with the kind of legs that the old sign painter musta had in mind when he did the doors on the Barracuda. We also wanted a true ’60s-era vibe to the girl, but with a present-day backdrop. And if we know anything, it’s that a Suicide Girl inherently knows how to interact with the kinds of hot rods we love. There’s a certain type of girl who happens to be the personification of a customized machine and it’s something you can’t coax out – it just has to be. Know what we mean? Bob is one of those girls.

We also know that Jay Watson is a lighting brainiac/maniac and really, photography is perfectly described as that: the manipulation of light. Right on. Now, it’s been a few years since we worked together, so it was great to get back on that horse and throw down with Jay for a shoot once again.

Put all that together with a vintage, era-correct nightie, stretch those endless legs of Bob’s out across that car, get her hair and makeup did by our very own Kristina Kahm and let ‘er rip. The rest is up to the magic dust transferring through the air between photographer and model and we’ve learned that it’s best to not get caught in the crossfire.

The final shot? Well, we don’t wanna ruin it – order your stack of Christma-Hannza-Kwanika gifts, peel one off for yourself, and we think you’re gonna dig what we did with Bob, “Leggin’ It!” and Joe Hickenbottom’s private stash of vintage custom wheels in a certain barn on a particular ranch on the California Central Coast.